Technical Field
This disclosure relates to pottery shards and to a determination of their characteristics, including their age and/or the geographic location at which they were made.
Description of Related Art
The invention of pottery was a major step in human evolution. It usually has enough strength to protect food from vermin, enough liquid impermeability to store water and wine, and enough fire resistance to be used in cooking.
The earliest pottery was created about 20,000 years ago. Biological and metallic artifacts are prone to decomposition and corrosion. But ancient pottery shards often withstand the test of time and are often found in archeological sites. Due to evolving pottery making techniques over, pottery shards can often help archeologists date a particular excavation layer during excavation. Pottery can also help archeologists identify the geographic and cultural origins of a site, as each civilization often developed its own unique types of pottery.
Pottery shards are often classified by archeologists based on their color, surface texture, density, thickness, curvature, material, and shape. Since complete and intact potteries are rarely found, archeologists often have to extrapolate based on individual shards. The conclusions drawn are often incomplete and unsatisfactory.
Techniques have been developed to provide more accurate analysis. One example is pottery petroglyph. Thin sections (e.g., 30-microns) of the shards are examined under a polarized light microscope to see the inorganic elements as a way to estimate the soil origin of the pottery and thus its possible cultural source. Alternatively, organic residues have been harvested from the pottery for radioactive dating. Both of these techniques, however, may require extensive preparation in a laboratory and thus may not be feasible in the field.
What has long-since been needed is the ability to provide quick, real time analysis of pottery shards in order to guide field excavation.